In the day to day operations of a hospital, many patients are moved. In many instances, patients are ambulatory and can move from a hospital bed to a wheelchair to be moved yet again. Many patients are not ambulatory. These patients must also be moved with the assistance of nursing and medical staff. Non-ambulatory patients are moved from a hospital bed to a gurney whenever there is a need to move a patient to a new area. Once moved to the new area, they are moved again into a new room or other environment. When a patient undergoes surgery, even the ambulatory patient is generally rendered non-ambulatory due to the effects of anesthesia. Generally, the anesthesia does not wear off shortly after concluding the operation. A patient is generally moved from the operating table in an operating suite to a bed in a recovery room. In the recovery room, the patient is observed until they “wake up” after the anesthesia wears off. In the recovery room, a nurse can also keep an eye on many patients in the event something should go wrong shortly after an operation. Once the patient awakens or recovers sufficiently, the patient is then moved again to a hospital room. Most patients are rendered non-ambulatory by virtue of the operation. As a result, the nursing and medical staff must move the patient onto a gurney for transport back to the recovery room. Generally, the patient stays on the gurney while in the recovery room. Upon recovery, the patient is then moved on the gurney to the hospital room. Once at the hospital room, the patient is moved from the gurney to the hospital bed by medical staff, or the nursing staff.
The most common device used to move a patient is shown in FIG. 1. The transport device 100 includes a number of elongated rollers 110 that are covered by a mesh cloth or vinyl 130. A sheet of material, called a “chuck” 150, is wrapped around the device 100. The patient is rolled from a supine position to a lateral decubitus position (so called “log roll”), at which time the device is jammed between the patient and the surface of the bed or gurney or other surface on which the patient is lying. The patient is then rolled from the lateral decubitus position back to a supine position onto the device and the cloth chuck 150 covering the device 100. The patient is rolled onto the device 100 with the assistance of nursing or medical staff. At this point, the patient is generally only partially on the device 100. The medical or nursing staff may have to push and/or pull the patient across the device to effect a transfer across surfaces 100. Once on the transport device 100, the patient must be pushed and/or pulled across and over the device 100. The patient rolls over the transport device 100 and the individual rollers as the patient is transported to the next surface.
The current device has many problems. The ride for the patient is uncomfortable, as the dorsal aspect of the patient does not move smoothly across the belt surface due to the open spaces between the rollers, which are located beneath the belt. This bumpy ride is stressful on patients being transported. For example, patients that have just completed an operation are many times still being monitored during transport and into the recovery room. The monitoring information taken during transport, such as heart rate, ECG (electrocardiograph), blood pressure, and respiratory rate show that the patient undergoes stress. Another problem is related to the hospital staff, such as the nursing staff or medical staff. In moving the patient, the staff must bend over two surfaces and push and/or pull the patient. This method is inherently inefficient due to accepted principles of physics, i.e., friction. This can cause any number of injuries and resulting workman's compensation claims. Also, for patients of significant size and/or weight, additional hospital staff is required for the physical task of moving the patient from one surface to another with the existing transport device. These injury and labor force issues can add dramatically to the cost of operating a hospital. A new chuck has to be wrapped around the transportation device each time the patient is moved. Wrapping the transportation device with the chuck is mundane relative to the advancement of technology within the healthcare industry. These, of course, are but a few of the problems associated with the transportation device 100.